Default post scope is All Aspects (usually empty) when first joining
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My own introduction to Diaspora included at least a few times when I posted to my near-non-existent aspect population when I intended to make a public post. I feel the default should be public to help new users have a better experience.
Some people feel that, but over many discussions the majority opinion was that it is more important to protect people's privacy when the first join.
The potential results of someone accidentally posting something private as a public post are far greater than those of accidentally posting something as a limited post that they wanted public.
I haven't tested the 'getting started' UI for a long time, but I'm fairly sure it points out the option to set a post's visibility to public; and it's possible for a user to change the default to public. So I think it's OK (if not perfect) as it is.
Hi @goobertron. You're correct in that a message is displayed (along with three others) on the first home screen. The message suggests you make your first post public but my experience this kind of UX is that people don't read and mostly dismiss these things to get on with their train of thought.
On the safety point, I think the vast majority of users have been trained to expect the worst in terms of privacy. Not that I advocate for it, but many may just assume that their posts are reaching everyone and then be disappointed when there's no response (especially to that pre-filled #newhere post!). It would be a rare and foolish user who would in their first few posts, while they're still trying to figure out what D* is, spill any very private beans.
I searched but wasn't able to find any discussions of this point. I admit I only searched here. I'll have to take a look at the discourse to see the arguments.
For the first post the visibility is set to public (since then you don't have any contacts yet), but after that it defaults to all aspects. This topic has been discussed many times, but keeping the default to "all aspects" is better than accidentally posting something public (as goob already said). If people really want to post mostly public they can change their default in the settings.
people don't read and mostly dismiss these things to get on with their train of thought.
Especially then it's important not to just post everything public if people don't read or understand what it means.
then be disappointed when there's no response (especially to that pre-filled #newhere post!)
That one is already posted public by default.
I searched but wasn't able to find any discussions of this point.
I also don't remember where all these discussions were (but this was discussed multiple times over the years), might also have been some discussions on diaspora directly where it's hard to find. One of the older Discussions about changing the default was here: https://discourse.diasporafoundation.org/t/diaspora-usability-discussion/172
There are also a lot of discussions about being able to change your default (see here for example), which was implemented a few years ago (#7118), and that fits most peoples needs who want public by default. And I still think it should be an active decision to change your default to public and not diaspora just posting everything publicly by default.
I can confirm that:
- For the very first post, the dropdown is set to "public", see screenshot below
- It is possible to set any aspect, or public, as the default selected visibility for the publisher
In my opinion, this is the best we can do there.
Ahh, I found the disconnect. When I got to that first screen, my instinct was to close all the things, including the orange banner which exits this first post context. From then on, my default is All aspects.
Closing this as what's left is a philosophical question about privacy expectations in networked services, but wanted to register this as a point of friction for some new users. I see also that it's a default defined in the database, so not terribly hard to change for a motivated podmin.